OUR CHILDREN
Patri, Angelo
Our Children By Angelo Patri IT IS FINE to teach children to be useful, helpful human beings. Training for usefulness is the best sort of training. But it is not all of childhood. We must be...
...This may change daily in detail but the basic plan of duty, play, free time, should stand...
...Children need play, sunshine, enjoyment of freedom in the open...
...Drudgery in child- hood is a deadly thing...
...Hours of play in the open air with child companions are as necessary as nourishing food...
...We must be watchful to make sure that we do not make too much use of the children while training them for usefulness...
...Will caring for the baby for an hour make this little girl more motherly, more interested in children and better able to rear them well...
...Never too much —-just enough to make growth pleasant and sure...
...Such associations nourish mind and body and children learn from each other in play far more than they learn from grownup people...
...Something useful and helpful is to be done daily...
...We should measure the righteousness of every duty we ask of them by the effect on their intelligence and character...
...They are what bind children to their homes and those who make their homes, in affection...
...The best way out is to plan the day a little...
...We should be training the children for their own sakes, not ours...
...There is always the danger of getting over the lins here...
...Free time in the house is necessary too, because it is in these free, happy hours that children get the feeling of home and folks and kinship...
...All three are essential to the growth of healthy, intelligent children...
...When a child is willing to help, willing to learn, is cheerful in serving others, unless one is especially careful that child will be worked beyond the point where education becomes drudgery...
...As usual, it is the middle of the road in this matter of teaching usefulness that is safest...
...It destroys and deadens the spirit...
...Have some idea as to what a child is to do, and when...
Vol. 8 • June 1944 • No. 23
